CVE-2023-53513

MEDIUM
Published Oct 1, 2025 Modified Apr 6, 2026 CWE-674

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nbd: fix incomplete validation of ioctl arg We tested and found an alarm caused by nbd_ioctl arg without verification. The UBSAN warning calltrace like below: UBSAN: Undefined behaviour in fs/buffer.c:1709:35 signed integer overflow: -9223372036854775808 - 1 cannot be represented in type 'long long int' CPU: 3 PID: 2523 Comm: syz-executor.0 Not tainted 4.19.90 #1 Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Call trace: dump_backtrace+0x0/0x3f0 arch/arm64/kernel/time.c:78 show_stack+0x28/0x38 arch/arm64/kernel/traps.c:158 __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:77 [inline] dump_stack+0x170/0x1dc lib/dump_stack.c:118 ubsan_epilogue+0x18/0xb4 lib/ubsan.c:161 handle_overflow+0x188/0x1dc lib/ubsan.c:192 __ubsan_handle_sub_overflow+0x34/0x44 lib/ubsan.c:206 __block_write_full_page+0x94c/0xa20 fs/buffer.c:1709 block_write_full_page+0x1f0/0x280 fs/buffer.c:2934 blkdev_writepage+0x34/0x40 fs/block_dev.c:607 __writepage+0x68/0xe8 mm/page-writeback.c:2305 write_cache_pages+0x44c/0xc70 mm/page-writeback.c:2240 generic_writepages+0xdc/0x148 mm/page-writeback.c:2329 blkdev_writepages+0x2c/0x38 fs/block_dev.c:2114 do_writepages+0xd4/0x250 mm/page-writeback.c:2344 The reason for triggering this warning is __block_write_full_page() -> i_size_read(inode) - 1 overflow. inode->i_size is assigned in __nbd_ioctl() -> nbd_set_size() -> bytesize. We think it is necessary to limit the size of arg to prevent errors. Moreover, __nbd_ioctl() -> nbd_add_socket(), arg will be cast to int. Assuming the value of arg is 0x80000000000000001) (on a 64-bit machine), it will become 1 after the coercion, which will return unexpected results. Fix it by adding checks to prevent passing in too large numbers.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

5.5
MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-674 CWE-674

Affected Products

Vendor Product
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2023-53513? +
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nbd: fix incomplete validation of ioctl arg We tested and found an alarm caused by nbd_ioctl arg without verification. The UBSAN warning calltrace like below: UBSAN: Undefined behaviour in fs/buffer.c:1709:35 signed integer overflow: -9223372036854775808 - 1 cannot be represented in type 'long long int' CPU: 3 PID: 2523 Comm: syz-executor.0 Not tainted 4.19.90 #1 Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Call trace: dump_backtrace+0x0/0x3f0 arch/arm64/kernel/time.c:78 show_stack+0x28/0x38 arch/arm64/kernel/traps.c:158 __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:77 [inline] dump_stack+0x170/0x1dc lib/dump_stack.c:118 ubsan_epilogue+0x18/0xb4 lib/ubsan.c:161 handle_overflow+0x188/0x1dc lib/ubsan.c:192 __ubsan_handle_sub_overflow+0x34/0x44 lib/ubsan.c:206 __block_write_full_page+0x94c/0xa20 fs/buffer.c:1709 block_write_full_page+0x1f0/0x280 fs/buffer.c:2934 blkdev_writepage+0x34/0x40 fs/block_dev.c:607 __writepage+0x68/0xe8 mm/page-writeback.c:2305 write_cache_pages+0x44c/0xc70 mm/page-writeback.c:2240 generic_writepages+0xdc/0x148 mm/page-writeback.c:2329 blkdev_writepages+0x2c/0x38 fs/block_dev.c:2114 do_writepages+0xd4/0x250 mm/page-writeback.c:2344 The reason for triggering this warning is __block_write_full_page() -> i_size_read(inode) - 1 overflow. inode->i_size is assigned in __nbd_ioctl() -> nbd_set_size() -> bytesize. We think it is necessary to limit the size of arg to prevent errors. Moreover, __nbd_ioctl() -> nbd_add_socket(), arg will be cast to int. Assuming the value of arg is 0x80000000000000001) (on a 64-bit machine), it will become 1 after the coercion, which will return unexpected results. Fix it by adding checks to prevent passing in too large numbers. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2023-53513? +
CVE-2023-53513 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.5 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance.
What products are affected by CVE-2023-53513? +
CVE-2023-53513 affects products from linux, specifically: linux_kernel. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.
How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2023-53513? +
You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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